Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped over $3K as it traded at its $48K support level, a level that some analysts feel is key in determining the cryptocurrency’s future prospects in 2022.

Losses from crypto market liquidations totaled $370 million at the time of writing.

Almost 80% of these liquidations were on long bets, which are futures contracts in which traders gamble on a price gain.

For the day, 129,644 traders were liquidated on the Crypto futures market. By bit was the recipient of the largest single liquidation order, at $5 million.

Bitcoin fell as much as 4.5 percent on Tuesday, selling at around $48.5k at 6 p.m. West African time. Ether, the world’s top altcoin by market cap, was also in the red, plummeting more than 3%.

According to FTX Exchange, smaller tokens such as Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and meme currency Dogecoin all plummeted on Tuesday.

Crypto investors, particularly whales, have been withdrawing from speculative markets recently, concerned that the central banks’ stimulus program is coming to an end.

The extent to which Bitcoin and the broader crypto world are vulnerable to this danger is a contentious question.

Bitcoin values have historically mirrored the price of riskier assets such as US equities. However, that tendency is beginning to change this month.

The S&P 500 index of the top corporations is up approximately 5% since the beginning of December, while bitcoin is down around 10%.

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.